


Sloshed

by NorthwesternInsanity



Category: Def Leppard, Music RPF, Scorpions - Fandom
Genre: Crackfic based on true story, Drunkenness, Gen, Humor, Pranks and Practical Jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:15:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27310300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorthwesternInsanity/pseuds/NorthwesternInsanity
Summary: "...I remember the one [hotel in...] Phoenix, Arizona. It was like with an outdoor pool, more like an atrium hotel. And [Pete Willis] had been drinking so much, so he was unconscious -he was in a coma. And so, some of us and some of the Def Leppard guys, we took him -with his bed -and carried him down the stairs from the fifth floor, and put him next to the pool, and then found the garden hose, and were like squirting him with water, trying to wake him up. Impossible!" -Matthias Jabs on touring with Def Leppard in 1980...This humor crackfic is the story of said incident
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	Sloshed

Rick winced as a hard, rapid knocking came at his hotel door, in short succession of one on the adjacent door he could hear from outside.

He heard the same pounding on the door on the other side of his room a moment later, too.

Slowly, Rick pulled open his door and leaned to take a look outside. He saw Joe step out from the room to his left, and saw Steve ever so slightly poke his nose through a four-inch gap on the right.

Sav stood in front of Rick's door, shifting his gaze across the three doors as he stared them all down with the death glare on his face.

"Is there a problem, Sav?"

" _Is_ there a problem?" Sav tossed his hands up carelessly and gestured around before letting them fall to his sides. "I'm not sure. Look who's out here and who's missing, and take a wild guess if you care to."

Joe looked down at Rick and Steve, then to Sav, and the lack of someone to his other side.

"Oh, another situation with Pete?"

Steve gulped and pointed to Joe.

"That," said Rick, thirding Joe's guess.

It's one. We're driving into the place after the crews at half past three; we have _less than three fucking hours_ to be packed and ready to leave, and we have one guitarist still passed out in his bed. That's the problem." 

Sav huffed a long sigh, before dropping to an even quieter, calmer tone than the eerily hushed one he'd started with, no doubt from having to use every bit of his restraint. 

"Mensch is in rare form. I've been yelled at _three bloody times_ in the last twenty-four hours, two of which were over things I had nothing -absolutely _nothing_ -to do with, and I'm _not_ about to sit here and take it over _this_. And if he thinks _I'm_ going to pack Pete's stuff up for him because he couldn't be ready for the time he bloody well knew about, he's mistaken."

"I'll wake him up," said Joe.

"I'm gonna kill him," Sav muttered, making it clear how angry he really was. "And I already _tried_ waking him up."

"Oh, so you've come to tell us you can't?" Joe poked a gentle tease at Sav to bring him down a notch.

Sav shrugged and closed his eyes. "Do _you_ feel like trying to get him up?"

"I believe you," Steve readily volunteered, lest he turn Sav's angry wrath on himself inadvertently.

"I'm not surprised, to be honest; I just wanted to be sure." Joe turned to Rick, exciting the younger with a playful grin. "So. What do you suppose we do about _that?"_

"He's created a hard time for Sav; maybe we should give him a hard time and have some fun before it's really getting up on time to leave."

"All of you want to prank him? Fine. Why not?" Sav put his hands on his hips. "It's not like he's done anything to deserve any better at the moment."

"I'll get help," said Rick. He ran down the platform and knocked on two more exterior doors, knowing the guests they belonged to would be interested in participating.

Rudolf Schenker poked his head out of one, and Herman Rarebell stepped out from the other.

"Yes? What is it?"

"We have a situation here," said Rick.

"And we're going to have some fun with it," Steve explained.

Joe lit up, seeing the two of their tour partners, and pointed to them.

"And _you_ are invited to join us! Unless you'd rather not, of course!"

Herman grinned and pumped his fists in the air. "Why not? Let us see it!"

Sav opened Pete's door and pointed inside, before he walked in and clapped his hands together, all restraint he'd shown prior falling by the wayside.

"OY!" he shouted. "Last chance! Get your bloody arse UP! I'm not playing around!"

"But in a minute we will be," Rick whispered, before Steve and Joe both gave him the quiet sign with identical grins.

For good measure, Sav picked Pete's shoes up off the floor and smacked the hard bottoms together, knocked on his door, and even grabbed a pillow and slammed it against Pete's stomach.

"Oh, fucking hell," Steve murmured.

Pete didn't so much as move an inch or make a peep. The most reaction he had was a quicker exhale on impact of the pillow, which only Sav was close enough to hear.

Rudolf bugged his eyes out at him, and Herman chuckled lowly, shaking his head.

"Think the lot of you understand the problem now?"

"Damn, is he breathing?" With a chuckle, Joe went in and checked, finding that Pete indeed was alive, if impossible to pull back to the waking world for the moment. "If he didn't drink himself to death, I'd have to wonder if you didn't kill him trying to wake him up."

"He's breathing," Sav huffed. "Look at his cheeks; he's all blushed from the alcohol. He wouldn't have that color if he wasn't getting any air."

"So, no more mercy with him?" asked Joe.

Rudolf shot Joe a near-manic grin of agreement.

"No more," Sav confirmed. "He's had plenty chance to get up, and he's had plenty warning to not overdo it. We have to travel in the day -Peter reminded him in advance of today. He told him to be ready to go and to not do this!"

Steve looked over Pete, a look of combined fascination and horror with how unresponsive he was over his features.

"What's that to mean for him this time, then?"

"I say he's not gonna have a great time," said Joe, "but _we_ are."

"I get extra help with him." Rudolf ran down to the end of the outdoor platform, and then down the steps to the fourth floor.

A moment later, he came back up with Matthias Jabs, who wore a smirk of anticipation of whatever mischief they were about to get up to together. It became more pronounced with stifled laughter when he got a look at Pete.

"And, he will not wake up, you tell us?" he asked Rudolf.

"Nope." Rick shrugged innocently. "We tried!"

"He has been drinking so much, Sav was beating on him," said Rudolf, miming striking at a person on a bed, "and he did not move. He did not notice it. That is how much he is drunk. Can you believe it?"

"I do not know if you can say much about him with drinking so soon," Matthias warned, turning his sidelong glance toward Rudolf. "It is not very long -two weeks now, from when we were in Cleveland, and you were drinking so much, you had blackout and broke a TV."

Rudolf had enough remorse for that incident to look a bit sheepish, even after being reminded of his drunken antics for what was probably the hundredth time. It was pretty difficult to tell which was worse -Pete's impossible to wake condition, or Rudolf's hyperactive state with miniature losses of consciousness, and scattered recollection of what he'd done in his inebriated condition.

"Yeah, not that we appreciated that, though at least I've only seen that extreme from Rudolf once," said Sav, reclaiming his duty in making the snide remarks. "At least he doesn't try to pick fights with people bigger than him, either. Consider this making up for it, Rudy. Right, on with it then, what do you suppose we do with him, Joe?"

" _Great_ question!" Joe perked up and began speaking in an exaggerated tone, just to be funny -and much to Rick's amusement. " _I'm not sure_. What do we all _want_ to do?" He raised an index finger. "Actually, _I_ like it when we move him someplace he's not expecting, to see what he'll do when he realizes. Top _that_ if you can."

He clapped his hands together and looked between his own band mates and their three present tour partners.

Sav conceded to Joe with a shrug.

"Well, we can't take him up to the roof with this place like that other time; the access is locked off from hotel guests with an alarm," said Rick. "Besides, he wasn't really fazed by that. Where could we take him instead?"

"In the shower?" asked Steve.

"Boring," Herman blurted. 

Nearly everyone nodded in agreement.

"I mean, we _can_ take him to someone else's room. Maybe he'd be more disoriented -to do something to make a spectacle of himself -if we took him to one of _your_ rooms." Sav pointed between Rudolf, Herman, and Matthias, and made emphasis on the latter. "Yours in particular, being down a level from ours. But I'd be hard pressed to believe that something like that would do it when he hardly flinched over being laid out on a pitched roof."

"Maybe the question you want to ask is not where to take him, but what to do with him when you get him there." Herman grinned mischievously.

Steve looked down over the railing at the pool deck in the middle of the hotel atrium.

"Dip him in the pool with his clothes on, then leave him on the deck to find his way back up to his room?" he suggested with a grin.

Rick snorted a laugh through his nose.

"Hush!" Sav elbowed him. "Don't want to make so much noise that we get him conscious again before we get to do whatever we will. Now that we're set on it."

For good measure, he then shot a death glare at Matthias, who was giggling and stifling the noise against the back of his hand. When he saw the look on Sav's face, he turned to look away and pulled his t-shirt up over his mouth, shoulders now shaking with hard, silent wheezes.

"That's great," said Joe. "Absolutely, I say we will. But then, _I_ think we should save that idea for another time, because just a couple of us is all it would take to manage that. We have extra help with us this time. What _can_ we do with that, _and_ a swimming pool that we can't do if we don't have both?"

Sav glanced to Herman and Rudolf, to make sure they were up for the task.

"Yes!" Herman nodded. Behind him, Rudolf and Matthias were grinning painfully.

"So we're going to carry him on his bed," Steve decided.

"We're _definitely_ taking him on his bed." Joe crossed his arms resolutely.

"Float his mattress in the pool?" Rick barely managed to blurt out his words, before he turned to Matthias and Steve and cackled quietly, trying to hide it from Sav.

"Oh, bloody hell." Steve wiped laughing tears from the corners of his eyes and heaved a gasp for air.

"Like it is a raft!" Herman leaned back and stretched his arms out over his head to mimic floating on his back in water, which got Rick laughing full-force -until Sav reached over and pinched him.

"Ow! Bloody HELL!"

"I'm sure that would be absolutely hilarious," Sav snarked, "but considering we're _already_ in the hot seat with Mensch for some of us missing the _bus_ yesterday..." 

He sneaked a sidelong glance at Rick, who would have been in far more trouble if Herman hadn't found him and invited him onto the Scorpions' bus to ride in with them instead. 

"...is there something we can do when we take him down that won't completely saturate the mattress and undoubtedly get us paying for it?"

"There's a pool," said Steve. "So there's got to be a hose somewhere nearby it."

"We can go with that." Sav reached into Pete's bathroom and grabbed all the towels from it.

"Right then, we don't have all day." Joe motioned everyone inside the room and around the bed as Sav tucked the towels around Pete to protect the uncovered portions of the mattress from becoming too drenched by their impending prank.

Everyone positioned themselves around the bed, positioning the foot -the lightest end -as the leading end of the bed going down the stairs, to make it easier for those in front, descending backward.

"The stairs wind counter clockwise on the way down," said Joe, taking his position at the front with Herman, as they were the strongest among everyone. "At each landing, I will say 'turning' when it is time to turn around, at which point, Herman and I will step to our left, and those of you in the back and sides will step to your right to straighten us out for the next set down. Got it?"

"Don't mess up on that," Steve warned. "Joe's broken himself already at the factories. We can't break him again."

"We don't want to break _anyone_. I'm sure no one else wants a thrown out back before a show either," Sav quipped. "Is everyone ready?"

"Let's do it!" said Rick.

"Go!" Matthias and Rudolf pointed fingers up to the sky before taking their positions beside the bed on the left side, with Matthias along the side and Rudolf on the back corner. Rick and Steve took the respective positions on the right, and Sav went down in front of them to spot for obstacles on the stairwell and give all clears at each landing.

"Alright! ...Aaaand, one-two-three, UP!" shouted Joe.

Everyone rose up from squatting positions around the bed, hoisting it up safely with their legs, and then proceeded to follow Sav's direction in easing through the doorway and around the bend of the deck to the stairwell.

"We're about to descend now -I'll tell everyone when they need to step down. Back, middle, front," Sav designated, as it would be easier to say those words than two names. "First step -front, come down a few, or the others have nowhere to go."

Herman and Joe stepped down four shallow steps.

"-and stop! Middle, step down one! Back, step closer to the ledge!"

Matthias and Rick stepped down two steps, and Rudolf and Steve came forward to the very edge of the platform before the steps.

"Alright!" Sav eyeballed the angle of the bed. "Front, step down one more, and then, until front reached the landing -and they will tell us when they do -go down one step at a time, back, middle, front!"

Herman and Joe stepped down again, and Sav repeated the cadence as everyone performed it.

"Is he still asleep?" asked Joe.

"He is," answered Matthias.

"At bottom, and turning!" Herman announced. 

He and Joe angled slightly to the left, and waited for the others to catch up with them to step over further. The rest swung the back of the bed to the right as they leveled out on the landing and began the process again on the next half-flight down.

The process repeated smoothly the next couple of flights down.

Then, on the last flight, a towel fell off the edge of the bed, and in trying not to trip on it, Steve started to put his foot down two steps at once, at an angle where he was certain to lose balance.

"Watch out!" cried Rudolf.

Joe's eyes bugged. "Watch where you-"

"Steve, watch your step!" Rick warned.

Steve gasped and stumbled, and saved himself from falling, having put his foot dangerously on the edge of the step. He leaned back on his heel at the last second before his ankle started to turn.

Along with Steve, Rudolf stumbled down faster than Matthias could move down faster than counted with Rick.

"Rudy, be careful-"

_"Auch!"_ Matthias yelped, stepping down two more steps with Rick to level them out. "Rudy, you _stood_ on my _foot!"_

Herman snorted and let out a hardy guffaw. One by one, everyone joined in -even Matthias, who finally admitted it was a bit funny, considering no one actually fell down or dropped the bed.

"Steve, Matthias... Is everybody alright?" Rick barely held a serious tone, despite having true concern.

"We're alright. Ready to carry on," Steve decided, after a quick glance to the other conscious guitarists among them.

Sav picked the inciting towel up, and they continued down the stairs with only a few much smaller hitches. Finally, they were able to set the bed down by the side of the pool.

By now, Joe had turned it into a game and took over for Sav, shouting orders like a drill sergeant.

"Get the hose!"

"Where is it?" asked Steve.

"Where's the hose?" Rick asked, nearly in unison.

"Find it!" barked Joe, serious expression slipping into a grin before he completely got it out.

Rick grinned wildly to mirror Joe and pointed up to the sky. "Find the hose!"

"Find zhe hose!" Rudolf's repeat through laughter all but obscured his words in his accent. He took off with Rick, Steve, and Matthias, racing each other along the shrubs around the pool deck, trying to see who could find the hose and spigot first.

"Aha! I see it! I win!" Rick jumped up and down pumping fists of victory alongside a point of the bushes surrounding the foundation of the building.

"It is _here!"_ Rudolf pointed and turned back to direct everyone else toward the prize Rick found.

"Good! Unwind it; see if it reaches him!" Joe pointed to Sav and Herman. "Be ready to move him if it doesn't!"

Steve was already unwinding the hose from the hook it was coiled around, and untangling it with help from Rick, who then pulled the line out and dragged it in Pete's direction.

Seeing nothing else to help with over by the hose, Matthias ran back over to Pete's side, at the ready in case they had to move him. Luckily, as Rick straightened the hose out, they found out they did not.

"Alright, point it away from him; let me make sure it's not coming right on!" Steve traipsed into the bushes to turn the water on.

The hose had some nozzle attached, unfamiliar in style to any of them. It seemed to have settings, and a trigger, but never having seen one of the type, Rick and Steve were both unsure if it controlled the flow of water altogether, or simply adjusted the pressure.

"It's on!" called Steve. No water from the hose yet. Rick played with it, figured out which setting still created a jet of water good for hosing someone down, rather than a wide spray on a lower pressure, which he determined came from how hard he squeezed the trigger, and finally settling on the best combination for what they wanted to do, turned the hose on Pete and shot him with water in the chest at medium strength.

Pete still didn't so much as flinch. Not even when Rick tried shooting his bare feet sticking out from beneath his untucked sheets with the water shockingly cold by comparison to the dry heat outside.

Steve came up beside Rick. "Mind if I try?"

He aimed the hose above Pete on a lighter setting instead, and spritzed the air above in short bursts so that the water fell down over Pete like rain from the sky.

"WHAT?! Nothing?" Rick whined.

"Nothing yet." Joe raised an eyebrow and smirked.

Herman and Matthias ran up behind him with a bucket they found on the pool deck. After more spritzing from Steve didn't work, they had him fill it up, and Herman chucked the contents out over Pete, careful not to get too close to his face so to choke him.

"This impossible!" Rudolf grabbed the hose and shot at the underside of Pete's chin, taking it to less gentle measures.

At least this time, Pete seemed to gasp in his sleep, though didn't stir any further.

"Not right in the nose; we're not trying to drown him," warned Sav, "though I can understand if you want to at the moment."

"Sav!" scolded Steve, gasping.

"I may or may not be serious." Sav tossed his hands up. "I'm beginning to think there's no hope in getting him up in time at this rate."

"I can't believe it," groaned Rick, watching as Rudolf ceded his turn was up. "That's no fun. Come on!"

"Give me the hose," Sav grumbled, checking the pressure setting against his hand to find the strongest level that wasn't likely to hurt. Positioning himself beside the bed, he aimed at Pete, fingers on the trigger.

Herman began yelling something gutteral in German at Pete like a drill sergeant, slamming his one fist into his other hand to emphasize each order, which he'd later tell Rick roughly translated that Pete would wake up, he would get up out of bed, and he would like it whether he wanted to do it or not. At the end of each statement, Sav punctuated it with a strategic, quick shot of water against Pete's cheek, and Rick's pout grew larger with each that failed to get a reaction out of Pete.

"Alright, my turn, mate."

Joe took the hose and blasted the top of Pete's head once, soaking through his hair.

"Maybe if we cool his hot head," quipped Joe. "I'd be afraid to cool the other."

"You wouldn't dare," Sav hissed, holding his hands up to shield his mass of fluffed curls as Joe motioned playfully, pretending he was about to aim at Sav.

Instead, he turned around away from Sav and Pete, and he pulled the trigger and released quickly, catching Rick in the back with a spray.

The youngest shrieked as a grin bloomed over his pouty face.

"Hey!"

Matthias pointed at Rick and tossed his head back, laughing.

"He has been hosed!"

"Joe Elliott, give me that hose!" Rick ran over and began trying to wrestle it from him. Joe kept shooting it at random as he tried, soaking Rick and himself in the process.

"Hey! Break up this fight, NOW!" Herman scooped a bucket of water from the pool and tossed it over Rick and Joe as if they were two angry cats, then grinned mischievously.

"OHHH!" Joe squeezed his eyes shut and sputtered his lips, having gotten a good splash in the face. That gave Rick the perfect time to snatch the hose and turn it on Matthias, who ran around the pool deck trying to get away from it.

"Alright, I'm out," Sav declared, turning for the stairs to bolt back up to his room. "Any time a fight involves a hose, the hose wins -as you could just see. Same with Peter. There's nobody of us who will win against him."

"Alright, I'll tell him," Rick groaned, letting his arms fall slack at his side as he dropped the hose. He was so busy giving his _you-are-no-fun-at-all_ look, he didn't realize Herman and Rudolf sneaking up behind him from opposite sides, trying to steal the hose before the other did.

"No, you won't," Joe argued, his demeanor turning protective. "You still don't need to get him in rare form. I'll take care of it."

Joe and Sav tended to take turns taking the heat in the event Peter Mensch had a problem with something. Peter already preferred not to scold Steve and Pete, because he didn't want Steve unnerved before a show, and he knew Pete just didn't care. Nobody wanted to make Rick deal with it yet, even though he'd volunteered before to take on a difficult conversation with Peter, to be met with the same response. Considering how many times Sav had taken it last night, Joe was inarguably up for his turn anyway.

Before Rick could try to argue against being shielded for being the youngest, he got sprayed again, this time by crossfire. Matthias had been the intended victim before he ducked out of the way at the last second, and Rick joined him in chasing Herman around the pool deck, trying to get the hose away from the older drummer.

In trying to get the hose out of his grip once they caught up to Herman, both junior members of Def Leppard and Scorpions got half-drenched -or in Rick's case, finishing the job of getting soaked from his first tussle with Joe. Rick immediately turned the hose on Steve and Rudolf once he got hold of it, and they immediately joined the chase, turning direction after Rick. Before they could get to him, he handed the hose off to Matthias, who tried firing defensively behind himself as he ran.

Just then, a shout came down from the second floor walkway.

"What on EARTH have you boys gotten up to THIS time? Is that a BED down with you?!"

Peter Mensch stood at the platform railing, hands grabbing his hair on either side of his head.

Before a word of reply was spoken, seeing that they were already soaked, Rick and Rudolf promptly kicked off their shoes and jumped into the pool with their clothes on, sending a large tidal wave onto the deck to silently give Peter the gist of what they were up to.

Joe looked up at Peter, and failing to hold back a grin with his silent laughter that rendered him speechless, he held up his hands, palms up, and shrugged innocently.

Sure, he'd take the heat, but at least they'd had enough fun out of the situation to cool it down -except for Pete!


End file.
